- From: Obrst, Leo J. <lobrst@mitre.org>
- Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:25:22 +0000
- To: Bo Ferri <zazi@smiy.org>, "semantic-web@w3.org" <semantic-web@w3.org>
Another useful link (food for thought), from 2 years ago: http://weblog.clarkparsia.com/2011/09/19/semantic-versioning-and-owl-ontologies/. >-----Original Message----- >From: Bo Ferri [mailto:zazi@smiy.org] >Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 3:05 PM >To: semantic-web@w3.org >Subject: Re: Versioning system for ontologies > >Hi all, > >+1 for Alan's, Bernard's, Leo's and Michael's answers >but also +1 for utilising source code management platforms á la GitHub, >because they are especially good for the evolution of a vocabulary (e.g. >everybody can mak pull requests etc.) > >Some time ago this topic was discussed at Semantic Overflow in the >context of ontology versions and their relationships to instance data, see > >http://answers.semanticweb.com/questions/2815/how-do-i-knowmodel-the- >applied-version-of-an-ontology-specification > >Cheers, > > >Bo > >On 4/20/2013 8:30 AM, Michael F Uschold wrote: >> Glad to see this issue s getting lots of "air time". >> >> The whole issue of ontology versioning is very complex. See this talk >> for some of the issues: >> >> >> Avoiding a Semantic Web Roadblock: URI Management and Ontology >> Evolution >> <http://www.slideshare.net/UscholdM/uschold-michael- >semanticwebroadblock> >> >> >> >> Text versioning is really very rudimentary. >> Diff is super helpful to see what is different, but that is as far as it >> goes, it provides nothing by way of saving and tracking inked versions >> (that is what VersionURIs are for). >> >> The real complexity lies in a set of interdependent ontologies. If >> ontology A imports ontology B and there is any change at all in ontology >> B that causes B to spawn a new version, then A must also be a new >> version, becuase it includes all of B. What causes a new version to be >> triggered though? You need a new "text" version if you so much as >> correct a typo. You might only need a new "logical" version if the new >> version allow for different models, but there is no easy way to spot that. >> >> We have been putting out different versions of our upper enterprise >> ontolgoy, gist, and it all has to be done carefully and painfully >> manually. In our change notes we identify several different kinds of >> changes, and put each change in one of the 'buckets. They are: >> >> KEY for Change Log >> V: Visio/Vsualization changes only, not affect the owl (callouts, >> layout, grouping etc)** >> CL: for clarity only, better comments, fixing typos, laying out >> differently, etc. >> AD: purely additive, will not affect anything already existing. >> RF: refactoring, no semantic import. Includes changing names where old >> name is deprecated, moving things around from one ontology to another, >> different module and import strategies. >> SU: has semantic import from usage perspective, e.g. a comment changes >> usage which could give semantic errors. >> SI: has semantic import from inference perspective. axiom added, >> removed, changed etc. >> BI: Backwards incompatible >> >> A somewhat orthogonal category is whether a change is a bugfix which >> should never have been there in the first place, vs. changes for any >> number of other reasons. >> >> I find the SU category most interesting. Even just a comment can >> significantly change the intended use of a class or property, even if it >> is somethign that is not [easily] represented in OWL. One needs to >> manually examine each use of such concepts in to see if the ontology >> needs to change in any way. >> Taking a purely logical view, one would ignore such chagnes, since they >> done affect models at all. But they do matter in practice. >> >> Michael >> >> ** Our ontologies are authored in Visio, which exports OWL. >> >> This is intended as a guide for understanding the nature of changes, so >> that if existing enterprise ontologies base on a prior version of gist >> wish to 'upgrade' by importing the new version, they have a better idea >> what they need to change in their enterprise ontology. >> >> >> >> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Obrst, Leo J. <lobrst@mitre.org >> <mailto:lobrst@mitre.org>> wrote: >> >> We've looked at 3 tools that do ontology "semantic/logical" >> versioning, to some extent, which is harder than syntactic >> string-based methods like Subversion, etc. "Semantic/logical" >> ontology versioning is much harder than code-change tools.____ >> >> __ __ >> >> Or, rather, 2 ontology Diff tools and one ontology versioning tool. >> The latter is the most ambitious and promising, but is still early >> on in its development, as far as we can tell.____ >> >> __ __ >> >> The first two are:____ >> >> __1)__OWL Diff (in Protégé 4.2): >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzMNDfy4jcg. ____ >> >> __2)__OWLDiff: http://krizik.felk.cvut.cz/km/owldiff/ ____ >> >> __3)__HypergraphDB: >> http://www.sharegov.org/#!../protegehgdb/owltools.html. ____ >> >> __ __ >> >> (1) just displays (readable only, capturable by screen snapshot) >> differences between 2 ontologies, and really needs an output format, >> perhaps to spreadsheet format.____ >> >> (2) works primarily on the OWL 2 EL profile.____ >> >> (3) is really close to what we need, but is still early in its >> development and requires ontology development for versioning using >> the tool from the get-go. Which is not realistic. ____ >> >> __ __ >> >> We are going initially with (1), which strictly satisfies our need >> for Diff-ing ontologies, but we think we need to either modify the >> potential output formats or strongly suggest to the Protégé >> development team that they make better output formats available.____ >> >> __ __ >> >> Thanks,____ >> >> Leo____ >> >> __ __ >> >> *From:*asaegyn@gmail.com <mailto:asaegyn@gmail.com> >> [mailto:asaegyn@gmail.com <mailto:asaegyn@gmail.com>] *On Behalf Of >> *Ali SH >> *Sent:* Friday, April 19, 2013 12:39 PM >> *To:* Stephen D. Williams >> *Cc:* Prateek; semantic-web@w3.org <mailto:semantic-web@w3.org> >> *Subject:* Re: Versioning system for ontologies____ >> >> __ __ >> >> I'm also very interested in hearing answers to this.____ >> >> __ __ >> >> As Stephen mentions, treating an ontology analogously to source code >> (which is close enough) means that you can use services such as >> github (or google code). The downside is that an ontology lifecycle >> management is /not/ equivalent to source code management. Barring a >> native solution for ontologies, they do come quite close.____ >> >> __ __ >> >> You might also be interested in following the development of the >> Open Ontology Repository [1] ____ >> >> (a fork of the BioPortal platform), which among other things will be >> addressing this issue as well.____ >> >> __ __ >> >> [1] http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OpenOntologyRepository____ >> >> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Stephen D. Williams <sdw@lig.net >> <mailto:sdw@lig.net>> wrote:____ >> >> Do you want to version it like source code? Everyone has, is, or >> will move to Git for that. >> Or maintain the history of changes for reasoning and/or historical >> queries? This is probably more needed for actual statements, but >> could make sense here too: "Answer this query based on the ontology >> at time X." >> >> Stephen____ >> >> >> >> On 4/19/13 7:05 AM, Prateek wrote:____ >> >> Hello all,____ >> >> __ __ >> >> I am trying to identify a system which will provide versioning >> and revision control capabilities specifically for ontologies. >> Does anyone have any experience and idea about which systems can >> help out or if systems like SVN, CVS can do the job?____ >> >> __ __ >> >> Regards____ >> >> __ __ >> >> Prateek____ >> >> __ __ >> >> -- ____ >> >> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >> Prateek Jain, Ph. D. >> RSM >> IBM T.J. Watson Research Center >> 1101 Kitchawan Road, 37-244 >> Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 >> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/prateekj____ >> >> __ __ >> >> -- ____ >> >> Stephen D. Williamssdw@lig.net <mailto:sdw@lig.net> >stephendwilliams@gmail.com <mailto:stephendwilliams@gmail.com> >LinkedIn:http://sdw.st/in____ >> >> V:650-450-UNIX (8649) V:866.SDW.UNIX V:703.371.9362 <tel:703.371.9362> >F:703.995.0407 <tel:703.995.0407>____ >> >> AIM:sdw Skype:StephenDWilliams Yahoo:sdwlignet >Resume:http://sdw.st/gres____ >> >> Personal:http://sdw.st facebook.com/sdwlig ><http://facebook.com/sdwlig> twitter.com/scienteer ><http://twitter.com/scienteer>____ >> >> >> >> ____ >> >> __ __ >> >> -- >> >> >> (.`'ˇ.¸(`'ˇ.¸(.)¸.ˇ'´)¸.ˇ'´.) .,., ____ >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Michael Uschold >> Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts >> http://www.semanticarts.com <http://www.semanticarts.com/> >> LinkedIn:http://tr.im/limfu >> Skype, Twitter: UscholdM >> >> >> >
Received on Monday, 22 April 2013 19:25:51 UTC